There's something in him, that might've come from troubles, and isn't quite attainable by any other means. Cloud thinks that it's probably one of those words, used to describe a person's characteristics, but he can't really remember which one, or if there is one. He wonders if there's even an answer, and then guesses that maybe there isn't even a question, though he always comes to the same conclusion on that point: circular logic never gets him anywhere. By now, he's veered completely off-subject, and will later decide that whatever-it-was that seemed so important then, isn't now. And maybe the whole dilemma will depart, his mind uninterested in reverting to the unanswered questions that he doesn't ever think will find their solutions. Especially when Vincent won't talk about it.
"Why won't you ever tell me about yourself? Your past?"
"It is none of your concern.."
There are always times when he asks about things. Cloud has always been a relatively curious person (at least when the matters were somewhere he could assess them without any undue work). And, of course, there are always answers to these questions. They're just never the ones that he wants.
"What's it feel like to let something else take you over like that?"
"What do you think it is like to die..?"
He's never thought that answering a question with another question was fair; how was he supposed to know, when it was the answer to the first he'd been looking for? It was almost infuriating, and sometimes Vincent would be left sitting by a cooling fire alone, the last one awake at camp and ever the object of such impotent frustrations. Cloud would never make a very good scientist, on any level, when he couldn't even hold the patience for the scientific process in its simplest form. He could spend too much time thinking too often, but if there was nothing solid to grasp hold of from the source of his wondering, he considered it a lost cause. That would never stop him, however, from pursuing the urge to scratch such an itch. He'd think that he almost knew..
While lying curled around another warm body and watching shadow-shapes caress the outside of a tent's canvas, one's thoughts always seem more plausible. Strange ventures of the mind are easily made, and it's much simpler to believe what lies behind the eyes. There has forever been something about the dark which makes the voice of a person's imagination suddenly synonymous with the voice of reason. Cloud understands all of this very well, and finds it's best to remember things in the quiet company of Vincent's noiseless, unconscious breathing. In the dark, he can't pick at the images his mind supplies, or fill himself over with doubt, because he doesn't doubt them. He won't fritter away at their edges, or think himself wrong for a shattered past. These are the times he thinks on his lover's odd demeanor the most, though hardly the most understanding ones. In all honesty, Cloud finds the best moments during which to attempt to gain an understanding of Vincent Valentine are when there's the least time to actually think.
Fights are the best. That quick and simple, yet logical, demeanor is best displayed in action when lives are on the line. The swordsman believes that it may be because in a fight, no one has the chance to muddy up their intentions with words or excuses. There's nothing except uncomplicated clarity on the battlefield, no room or reason to lead the enemy to believe something about you, or to not believe it, when there is only the objective to live or die, kill or be killed. He wishes love could be like that, sometimes. But these are only the moments when Cloud isn't watching flesh churn and melt into new, inhuman shapes. When he isn't seeing something that he loves burn away into something that he has only grown to expect.
He watches Vincent's clothes shredded to bits, wavering through the air and spreading red across the ground like the fallen leaves or, worse, splashes of too-bright blood. And he thinks, he thinks.. That first time, watching what had been a man and was now simply a predator shred the scaly flesh of their attacker, he had been frightened of Vincent, or whatever it was right to call him, then. His mouth had gone dry, seeing those same crimson eyes, only amplified so many times, turned back to peer at him with indifferent ferocity. And he thought, then, what he can't remember now.
"It's 'wild' isn't it...?"